The Subtle and the Soul

“When my thinking about God is correct, consistent and focused, I am, in some way, thinking correctly about everything else. When my thinking about God is incorrect, inconsistent or disjointed, I am thinking incorrectly about everything else in my life. More than anything else, I need a right view of God.” – Fil Anderson

One of the most amazing movies I’ve come across is called The Usual Suspects. There are elements of shock, awe and extreme violence, but there is a theme of subtlety which is woven into every scene of this brilliant story. It is a tad graphic at times, so if you rush out to rent it, know that there are some visually jarring scenes and explicit things in it, but beyond the surface there is a sentiment and a theme which opens the eyes of those who understand the implication. For those who haven’t seen this movie, it is about a group of criminals and their interwoven paths of crime as told by a detained prisoner named Verbal Kint. Verbal recounts an amazing tale of the story through some details of circumstances and distracted stories, though one statement which he makes is the focus of the central idea of the movie in disinformation and subtle diversion. The statement is based on one from the French poet Baudelaire which says, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.”

The concept is that the Great Manipulator has pulled off his greatest victory in trading the awareness of his existence for the human influence of believing that man can control his own circumstances. Through Satan’s distractions, man comes to believe in his own power and understanding and their effective uses being likened to God’s. As people, we long to make sense and be in command of the details in our lives. When we believe in our own ability to define our own boundaries of our existence instead of what God reveals to us about ourselves and our world, we fall prey to the trap of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the Garden, we see Adam and Eve make the decision which is a constant battle for all of us – “Do I trust what I think is best or what God thinks is best?” The amazing character influence of Satan in the Garden is not that he used discouragement to turn Eve away from God; it is that he used encouragement to subtly turn Eve slightly more toward herself than to God. Her issues were based in a limitation to her trust, and a need to take control. She needed all the facts so that she could make her own decision about what was best. In this moment, mankind did not trust the Lord’s direction of forbidding the fruit from this tree: God did not explain, He just said, “No!” The interaction of the Serpent and the woman was that God was holding back from his creation, to keep her under control. His words were slight and cunning to the heart of man, “God didn’t explain this because you will then understand things as He does. You will be able to determine, for yourselves, that which is good and bad in your own lives. Your eyes will be opened to all of the truth, so that you can see and understand all sides of reality in your circumstances.” These are familiar words to us in our lives from the Great Deceiver. We know many of them from the Garden as well as the new versions he manipulates the truth with today. “Live your life according to your desires. God has given you the gifts of who you are to distinguish you among your colleagues, to help you achieve more for his sake, to make sure the world knows that because you are so good, God’s blessings follow you wherever you go and successful beyond your wildest dreams. If you are a Christian, filled with the Spirit, whatever your heart desires is the leading or true calling of the Spirit of God.” The Devil knows too well that if you turn away from God, you will feel the need to repent, where as if you are only distracted or overwhelmed, you may just muddle through or remain too busy with the moment to stop and seek the Lord. This is the exquisitely genius chess game of Satan: He uses subtleties of shades within the light to change the fulcrum of our lives from God to ourselves. The devil uses enough of the truth to keep us thinking we are going the right way, as we embrace our self, our ego and our own agenda – our will not Christ’s will being done. God did not send his Son to die so that by acknowledging our sin and his redemption from it, we would live in unrivaled success or favor with our common man. The son of God was beaten and crucified for our reconciliation to the place of being near to God. This is the hope in Him where we might be rescued from our inability to act and for our salvation by the risen wonder of the Lord whose holiness and grace covers us so that we can enjoy his presence.

The subtlety of Satan would lead us to believe that God’s glory in us, or our restored nature in God, was based in our own ability to be good, to do good, to live a good life and have wonderful and divine experiences as we pursue the avenues of our lives. Just as with the Serpent and the woman we try to understand everything by all means possible. Instead of relying on the Father, we listen to the Serpent when he says, “Deep down, you know God has made you able to understand on your own. If you only understand more about yourself, if you only become centered on who you are, you will figure it out. God wants you to figure it out on yourself.” In this we become our own worst enemy to pursuing God. We take the fruit from the forbidden tree and share it with those around us. The reality of the subtlety is that this sounds like being a strong person – like being responsible or using the gifts God has given us to make it through this world. God’s intent is that we would seek Him first, that we would deny ourselves and follow Him. As Proverbs 3 instructs us to trust in the Lord, don’t rely on your own understanding and that He is the one who directs your path.

Of course the other side of the experience of the fall and the fruit is that Adam and Eve hid from God. This is the reality of the Serpent’s deception; as we shift our eyes from God to ourselves, we lose sight of where He is and focus on where we are. The natural outcome of this is that we feel isolated and far from God. Another interesting twist from the story is that the point of reference which Verbal experiences the information he is sharing, is that he was hiding. His recap of “the truth” was not from the best vantage point of viewing, due to the fact that he was hiding behind some crates during the movies pivotal scenes This is the other line of confusion that we experience in the Devil as Verbal alludes to as he winds through his story in the movie, in the trick of subtle misdirection is where he whispers to our human identity to sway our reality of place with God to the defensive validation of us as equal. In this trick, the combat of good and evil places God and man in opposition, instead of reconciled unity. We humanize God’s abilities of power and control to be as responsive as our own. As we see with Adam and Eve, or even in our own hearts, man hides or justifies when he places himself in conflict with someone. The ideas are reasonable when one ignores the reality of sin and the Devil. When God asks why they are hiding, they distract from their disobedience with facts, “We are hiding because we are naked. Well, we ate because the Serpent tricked us.” Reasonable thought is often a value which can be used as a weapon by the Great Deceiver’s subtlety. Things that make sense in our earthly context – ideas which provide security in our ability as humans and confidence in the accomplishments of disciplined minds and bodies, can be a refuge which keeps us from seeking God. As a result, we feel far from the Great Lover of our Souls, we feel estranged the Lord who died to save us. As we struggle to “make sense” of things, or pursue our desires, we get in the habit of going back and forth with God. We see and feel Him near and far, we hide and we justify, we are distracted yet convinced; we contextualize Him in a level of disjointed, isolated, inconsistency which does not exist in his character. We seek our own ability to understand and control, and as we chew on the forbidden fruit of being aware, our eyes are opened to the distractions of reliance upon ourselves and the details of how we will resolve our dilemmas, instead of God and drawing near to Him.

The reality of our state as humans is that we were created to seek God. The bible is endowed with references to the rewards of fervently seeking Christ. Seeking Him is the main pursuit of our hearts. The subtlety of a non-existent Devil leads us to replace the opposition of Satan and God and put ourselves in the Devil’s place. As a result we feel distant. We are left to our own devices to restore order in our lives instead of leaving the illusion and seeking God; leaving our isolation of hiding for the reconciliation of his provision. We become caught up in the rollercoaster of emotional interpretation of “God’s will in our lives.” We must understand the consistency of the Father. We must know with all our hearts the foresight, omnipotence, knowledge and sovereignty of a God who has orchestrated the details of the world from the foundation of the earth. We need to hold this right view of God as the anchor for our soul that we would not me moved by the rising of the tide. We must seek Him and know Him for who He truly is that we might know the truth about ourselves, and experience the gentle care of his nearness.

Rather than using your own understanding, trust the Lord with all your heart. He is who makes clear and true the paths you walk. Do not be wise in your own eyes, but fear the Lord and do every effort to turn away from evil. Do not be disappointed or reject the discipline of the Father in Heaven. Do not despise what causes you to grow close to Him. For the Lord loves those He brings through difficulties as a Father who guides and corrects the son who is the delight of his heart. How fortunate is the one who finds wisdom in the Lord – the one who understands the truth in God. The wisdom of the Lord is a tree of life to those who take hold of the branches of truth. All those who firmly hold on to this wisdom know peace and happiness. For by his own wisdom, the Lord made the foundations of the earth, and by his own understanding he created the heavens, by his knowledge he watered the creation. Do not allow his truth to vanish from your sight. Stay strong in wisdom and discretion by seeking Him; they will be the life-breath of your soul and an unmistakable source of hope. For then you will walk on your path securely, and your feet will not stumble. When you go to sleep you will not have any fear or anxiety, and your sleep will restore you for the coming morning.